On the evening of September 22, Livermore sat in his position like reporters and waited for the press conference to be held, and the president said that there was a gift package to be given to the investment community who were eyeing the United Group, he was very concerned and curious, and wanted to know what it was, but after guessing for a long time, he vaguely touched some edges but could not fully perceive it, and every time he wanted to ask, the words came to his mouth and suppressed - if the president was willing to say, he would tell himself on the spot, and if he refused to say, it must be detonated at the last critical moment.

The reporters thought that Alessandro would read out the press release as usual, but when the scheduled 7 o'clock came, everyone did not see the familiar scene of Contini and Francisco joining forces, only the spokesman read out a brief statement: "At present, the company's core management is conducting final consultations, and this press conference will be delayed for an hour, when the president will personally announce major news, and I am responsible for reporting several daily news:

First, the queue for withdrawals that began on September 16, that is, Monday, has basically disappeared so far, and on Friday, the bank closes at 2 p.m.; On Saturday, the bank closed at 10 p.m., and today at 6 p.m., and each depositor can basically take it at any time, so Union Bank officially announced the end of the 24-hour work system and the resumption of normal business hours;

second, the lifting of withdrawal restrictions, when it was announced that the policy of $1,000 per person at a time no longer existed, and any institution or individual could withdraw all the money they needed at once;

Thirdly, from September 16 to 22, a total of 7 days, depositors of the Bank (regardless of enterprises or individuals) withdrew a total of 516 million US dollars, and the Bank separately returned 100 million US dollars of due borrowed funds, a total of more than 600 million US dollars outflow, the Federal Reserve and the Association of the Bank of China so-called 4 billion yuan gap has been solved at least 600 million, in order to ensure liquidity, the United Group returned 200 million US dollars in advance, and according to the situation needs additional help;

Fourth, the case of Richardson, an employee of the Bank's Manhattan branch in New York, who jumped off a building, has been investigated......"

Hearing about the Richardson jumping case, everyone was interested - this question was raised at a press conference on Friday, but it was prevaricated at the time on the grounds that "the situation is true, and what the inside story is still to be investigated", and now we can finally hear a full answer.

Mr. Richardson was a former employee of the National Bank of Manhattan in New York, and after the bank was acquired by the United Bank, he joined the Union Bank at the same time, and because of his good performance, he was promoted to the position of deputy manager of the savings department of the branch...... In the early hours of this Friday morning, Mr. Richardson jumped off the building after leaving a suicide note and died on the spot, and the police department investigated the scene and found that there was no sign of murder, and it was indeed his suicide, which was also recognized by the family, and the Bank is very sorry and regretful for this.

After the incident, President Ziano, President Francisco, President Del Vichio and other key senior executives visited the deceased's home and expressed condolences to the family.

According to the regulations on the management of the emergency plan of the United Group, the United States Branch set up a Richardson Incident Aftermath Team, headed by President Ziano and President Francisco as the first deputy team leader.

President Ziano personally donated $20,000, Mr. Francisco donated $10,000, and other colleagues in the U.S. branch donated a total of $20,000, a total of $50,000 in the aftermath donation, and at the same time, the Bank's Employee Mutual Aid Association unanimously decided to allocate $5,000 from the employee mutual aid fund......

According to the joint investigation by the police and the Bank, before the crisis, Mr. Richardson owned a total of 1.8 million market value stocks, of which about $300,000 was the principal, with a floating profit of more than 400,000 yuan, and the actual leverage ratio was nearly 5 times. After learning from the family, 120,000 of the 300,000 US dollars came from his inheritance, 30,000 yuan was the couple's savings for many years, and the other 80,000 yuan was the assets handed over by relatives and friends to Richardson for management, and the remaining part was a loan obtained by Mr. Richardson - known as an investment loan or principal loan, Mr. Richardson mortgaged two family houses, suburban farms and other real estate, personal credit, etc., with interest rates ranging from 8 to 8, with an average interest rate of 12%, and some loans were signed by both husband and wife, and some were signed by Richardson alone......

On Monday, the stock market fell sharply, and on Tuesday, it continued to fall, Mr. Richardson's stock account suffered heavy losses, and was liquidated by the brokerage near the lowest point on Tuesday and asked for a margin call...... By the close of trading on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Richardson's account was fully liquidated, leaving $32,000 in liquidated funds, which had been accumulated over the years......

At this time, the husband and wife had a violent quarrel, and faced the urging of relatives and friends from all walks of life, the bank and other lending institutions to collect, and under all hopes, Mr. Richardson did not figure out the desperate road for a while, and said in his suicide note that he was sorry for his family, sorry for the branch leader, sorry for relatives and friends, and did not blame others, but blamed himself for being too greedy...... The report on the investigation of the entire incident is placed at the New York District Police Department and you can interview and access it, but please protect the privacy of yourself and your family as much as possible, after all, no one wants to see this kind of thing.

There is no speculation that Mr. Richardson committed suicide due to excessive work pressure: Mr. Richardson worked 18 hours on Monday and took a turn off on Tuesday morning, and he proposed to deal with personal property issues, and he also asked for leave in the afternoon, which was agreed by the president of the branch, and advised him to take advantage of the opportunity to liquidate the warehouse, but unfortunately Mr. Richardson failed to listen to the advice, he should go to work on Wednesday and Thursday, and the gentleman did not go to work. However, they left information about their activities in front of other banks or lending institutions and had witnesses at the scene.

There is also no speculation that Mr. Richardson misappropriated the Bank's funds or could not return them: the Bank has strict management practices, and in order to prevent moral hazard, no matter in Europe or the United States, the Bank's employees and their direct family members are not allowed to apply for loans from the Bank, nor do they accept applications from the above-mentioned groups to open investment accounts with the Bank, so Mr. Richardson has no credit exposure with the Bank.

After the incident, after the manuscript check and the urgent verification of the work process, Mr. Richardson was not found to have any favoritism or misappropriation of the funds handled, although his personal account suffered heavy losses, but never reached out to the account under his management, his personal ethics are commendable, and he kept the bottom line, President Ziano expressed his appreciation for this.

After the death of Mr. Richardson, he left his wife and two minor children, his wife has been raising children at home full-time, no other source of income, the biggest problem facing the family at present is that the housing will be collected by the bank, President Ziano took into account Mr. Richardson's misfortune and personal performance, and gave the following instructions: If the training is qualified, Mrs. Richardson will be recruited into the Manhattan branch to work as a teller, and from a humanitarian standpoint, the president will purchase the house that has been taken away and provide it for his family to live in. The money was used to pay off the outstanding bank loans, and the title was temporarily vested in the Manhattan branch for future case-by-case processing.

In order to prevent the recurrence of such incidents, the Bank has issued an internal warning letter, requiring employees to deal with excessive leverage as soon as possible, especially in the case of high leverage accompanied by high financing, so as to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and hopes to appeal to all sectors of society through the media, asking investors to reduce their positions, reduce leverage, control risks, and improve their own tolerance to avoid the recurrence of the Richardson tragedy; At the same time, the Bank will initiate cross-checking and surprise inspections of all branches to prevent moral hazards such as misappropriation of customer funds. ”

In fact, there are a lot of people jumping off buildings this week, there are more than 30 in New York alone, and Richardson is just one of the typical microcosms: such a middle-class who works in the financial system, has rich investment experience, has a decent family, and lives happily Most of them have accumulated a lot of wealth in the past few years thanks to the rise in the stock market, and in order to make a better and faster fortune, they have used various means to increase leverage, and relatives and friends are envious of their "professional investment ability". Or envy their return on investment, they have come to entrust investment, and everyone happily shares it together when it rises, but the next time it must be full of contradictions - investment becomes borrowing, and other tangible and invisible pressures will lead to the worsening of the situation, and for a "decent person" like Richardson, this deterioration or pressure is the ultimate driving force for him to go to a dead end.

Due to the large number of people jumping off the building, the police can only hastily register and count, and if Richardson is not an employee of Union Bank, and is also involved in misappropriation of funds and other crimes, the police will not even bother to investigate.

The reporters talked a lot, they are all people with great powers, and they are all exchanging their own information - Union Bank did not lie about this matter, and publicly announcing it is more conducive to stabilizing market confidence than secret handling, and now everyone is afraid that there is a hole in today's funds behind Richardson, and now it seems that despite the hole, people have not reached out, otherwise the president would not have donated money and sent a house - the president is still more humane, not the kind of iron rooster that does not pull out a dime.

Do you see that when people are facing the pressure of a run, they are open to withdraw money and work 24 hours a day, and in the end, don't they also deal with it? Many people said that from this incident, they can see that Union Bank can be trusted, and the reputation and character of the president can be trusted, and if there are no other problems in a few days, everyone can rest assured and boldly deposit the money back. Looking at the handling of Richardson's case by Union Bank, it can also be seen that the United Group is humane, and the president from Italy is completely different from these local capitalists.

8 o'clock missing 5 points, Contini and Francisco hurried over, along the way seemed to be preoccupied, grim, everyone was speculating about what happened, what kind of shocking news would be given, and even guessing whether the two quarreled or even fought, but in fact, Contini and Francisco did not have a meeting at all, and the two did not need to meet to discuss, generally major matters were Contini's own ideas, and Francisco, the father-in-law, only acted as a staff member responsible for providing advice.

The two of them obviously pretended to deceive people, and Contini and he were obviously accompanied by Enzo just now to inspect the various guard forces, get in touch with the fleet, and at the same time check the tanks, armored vehicles, and Humvee assault off-road vehicles in the basement, in other words, to inspect the combat readiness. After Enzo confirmed that everything was correct, Contini deliberately belated.

"I'm sorry that the core meeting ended late, the anxiety caused by the ongoing research for the past few days, and the unexpected incident of Mr. Richardson, but there is finally a definitive result to announce." "You must be in a hurry, aren't you?" ”

The crowd greeted with applause.

"In the past few days, I've been getting calls from the industry and the media, asking about our reaction to the Fed and some other banks' practices, asking about my thoughts and next steps, and the media is waiting for us to respond to certain rumors......" Contini scanned the venue and responded in a cold tone, "I won't let you down!" You're going to get big news! A big news that will never be forgotten! ”

All the reporters were shocked: what the president said was extremely domineering, and everyone began to feel a little uneasy again, not knowing what kind of shocking news was waiting for them.

"I have actually heard these rumors for a long time, and I am very curious about what kind of black hand is manipulating all this, exerting pressure, creating a run, tightening the monetary system, halting interbank lending, checking accounts, etc., all coming to the United Group and the United Bank without exception...... I don't know when I offended some big guys, or whose interests the United Syndicate violated to make them target me like this. ”

Contini slapped the table angrily, and everyone was stupefied, this was the first time they had seen Contini so "out of shape"!

"Yes, what you've heard is true: the Fed has made it clear that it will not renew its loans to Union Bank when it expires; The interbank banks are also ambiguous, either saying that they should carefully consider the interest rate, or asking us to reduce our risks, or hoping that we will provide other guarantees or guarantees - the spearhead is directly pointed at the United Group and the United Bank! But I want to say that they will not succeed, and all conspiracies will be liquidated one day! I just hope that the people who play with fire and set themselves on fire don't scream when the time comes. "Hegemon of the Mediterranean